Billions of people are not getting enough of the nutrients human biology depends on.
Nutrition is one of the foundations of human biology.
Every day, the body depends on a continuous supply of vitamins, minerals, amino acids and other nutritional compounds to support energy metabolism, cellular function, tissue maintenance, neurological development, immune function and the thousands of interconnected processes required to sustain life.
Yet one of the largest global analyses of micronutrient intake ever undertaken has revealed the extraordinary scale of the nutritional gap facing humanity.
In 2024, researchers published the first worldwide estimates of inadequate dietary intake across 15 essential micronutrients.
The analysis covered 185 countries, 34 age–sex groups and 99.3% of the global population.
The findings were striking.
Billions of people worldwide were estimated to consume inadequate amounts of multiple nutrients essential to human function.
This is not a marginal nutritional problem.
It is a global one.
And at Nutrition Lab Sciences, we believe it reinforces something fundamental:
Nutrition is not simply about whether food is available. It is about whether human biology is receiving—and can access—the nutritional inputs it needs to function, repair and adapt.
A Global Nutritional Gap Measured in Billions
The study estimated that more than five billion people had inadequate dietary intake of each of three essential micronutrients:
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Iodine: 5.1 billion people — 68% of the global population
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Vitamin E: 5.0 billion people — 67%
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Calcium: 5.0 billion people — 66%
More than four billion people were estimated to have inadequate intake of:
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Iron: 4.9 billion — 65%
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Riboflavin / Vitamin B2: 4.1 billion — 55%
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Folate / Vitamin B9: 4.0 billion — 54%
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Vitamin C: 4.0 billion — 53%
And approximately 3.9 billion people , or 51% of the population studied, had inadequate intake of vitamin B6.
Across all 15 nutrients assessed, the pattern was clear.
inadequate intake
affected
The numbers cannot simply be added together because the same person may experience inadequate intake of several nutrients.
That is precisely the point.
The nutritional challenge facing humanity is not one missing vitamin.
It is the breadth of nutritional insufficiency across the human diet.
The analysis, led by Passarelli and colleagues and published in The Lancet Global Health , provides the clearest global picture yet of this problem.
Nutrition Is a System, Not a List
Modern nutrition is often presented nutrient by nutrient.
Vitamin C.
Iron.
Magnesium.
Calcium.
Zinc.
But human biology does not operate as a collection of isolated nutritional pathways.
Nutrients interact.
Proteins require amino acids. Enzymes depend on mineral cofactors. Vitamins participate in metabolic pathways alongside other nutrients. Plant-derived bioactive compounds interact with signalling, antioxidant and cellular systems throughout the body.
Biology works through relationships.
That is why Nutrition Lab Sciences takes a broader view of foundational nutrition.
Rather than asking only:
“How much of one nutrient is present?”
We believe nutrition must also ask:
“What nutritional complexity is being delivered, and how effectively can biology access it?”
This distinction sits at the heart of our work.
The Hidden Challenge: Presence Is Not the Same as Access
Food composition tells us what a plant contains.
It does not necessarily tell us how readily those compounds become accessible during digestion.
Plants protect their internal biology within complex physical structures.
Cellulose and other components of the plant cell wall give plants their strength and resilience. Inside those structures exist vitamins, minerals, proteins, amino acids, phytochemicals and many other naturally occurring compounds.
Before the body can interact with those compounds, digestion must first release them from the plant matrix.
This creates an important distinction between three ideas.
Content describes what is present.
Bioaccessibility describes what is released from the food or plant matrix during digestion into a potentially absorbable phase.
Bioavailability describes what ultimately crosses into the body and becomes available for biological use.
For Nutrition Lab Sciences, this distinction created an important scientific question:
Could we preserve the breadth of a whole plant while making more of its internal matrix accessible to human digestion?
That question led to the development of our proprietary Multi-State Biocatalytic Process.
Why We Chose Moringa oleifera
Nature already contains extraordinarily sophisticated nutritional systems.
Few plants demonstrate this more clearly than Moringa oleifera.
Moringa leaves naturally contain a broad nutritional matrix that includes vitamins, minerals, protein, amino acids and an extensive range of phytochemical compounds.
Scientific literature has identified more than 200 bioactive phytocompounds associated with Moringa across numerous chemical classes, including flavonoids, phenolic compounds, carotenoids, glucosinolates, alkaloids, terpenoids, fatty acids and other naturally occurring plant constituents.
Its complexity is precisely what makes Moringa so important to our work.
Instead of rebuilding nutrition from isolated synthetic ingredients, we asked whether science could work with the nutritional architecture nature had already created.
That became the foundation of Essentbio®.
Essentbio®: A Different Approach to Foundational Nutrition
Essentbio® is the world’s first Phytobiogenic™.
It begins with whole Moringa oleifera leaf and applies Nutrition Lab Sciences’ proprietary Multi-State Biocatalytic Process to restructure the plant matrix and improve its accessibility while preserving the breadth of the whole-plant material.
The result is not an extract.
It is not a conventional multivitamin assembled from isolated ingredients.
And it is not a synthetic reconstruction of a plant.
It is a bio-enhanced whole-plant nutritional matrix.
Our philosophy is simple:
Preserve what nature created. Use science to make more of it accessible.
Our Multi-State Biocatalytic Process
The Multi-State Biocatalytic Process is the technological foundation of Phytobiogenics™.
It combines principles from enzymology, food science and plant biology to transform the physical characteristics of the Moringa matrix through several coordinated stages.
The process is designed to:
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Restructure dense plant-cell architecture
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Liberate material held within the fibrous matrix
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Improve soluble-phase release
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Reduce particle size
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Increase available surface area
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Preserve the naturally associated whole-plant matrix
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Avoid conventional chemical extraction
Rather than isolating one compound and discarding the rest of the plant, our objective is to retain the biological breadth that makes whole plants unique.
This represents a fundamentally different way of thinking about nutrition.
Nature provides the complexity. Science improves access to it.
We Measured the Difference
Our approach is not based only on theory.
Nutrition Lab Sciences conducted simulated-digestion testing comparing Essentbio® with standard raw Moringa oleifera powder under the same conditions.
The difference was substantial.
Standard raw Moringa:
22.45% soluble-phase release
Essentbio®:
61.66% soluble-phase release
That represents a 2.75× improvement in overall matrix accessibility under the digestion conditions tested.
For us, this result matters because it demonstrates that the Multi-State Biocatalytic Process materially changes the behaviour of the plant matrix.
More of the material moved from the insoluble fraction into the soluble phase during simulated digestion.
That is the scientific foundation on which we continue to build.
From Nutrient Counting to Nutritional Architecture
The global micronutrient study highlights the scale of inadequate nutrient intake.
Our work addresses another part of the same nutritional equation.
Because increasing the quantity of nutrients available to humanity is important.
But so is understanding the form in which nutrition is delivered.
We believe the future of foundational nutrition will increasingly consider:
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The breadth of nutritional compounds delivered together
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The physical structure in which those compounds exist
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Their accessibility during digestion
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The relationships between nutrients, cofactors and phytocompounds
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The integrity of the natural matrix
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How nutritional systems interact with human biology as a whole
This is why Essentbio® is designed as a whole-plant nutritional foundation, rather than simply another collection of isolated nutrients.
Beyond Micronutrients
Moringa is important not only because of the vitamins and minerals it contains.
Its leaves contain an extraordinary spectrum of naturally occurring plant compounds.
Nutrition Lab Sciences’ research profile identifies more than 200 bioactive phytocompounds associated with Moringa, spanning numerous chemical families.
Among the better-known compounds associated with the plant are:
Quercetin
Kaempferol
Myricetin
Isoquercetin
Astragalin
Hesperidin
Moringin
Chlorophylls
Carotenoids
Phenolic acids
Glucosinolates
Naturally occurring terpenoids and phytosterols
These compounds form part of the broader plant matrix alongside Moringa’s nutritional components.
This is one of the fundamental differences between whole-plant nutrition and a conventional vitamin tablet.
A plant is not simply a container for isolated vitamins.
It is a complex biological system.
And Phytobiogenics™ is our attempt to work with that complexity rather than remove it.
Why This Matters Now
The micronutrient figures revealed by the global study are extraordinary in scale.
Approximately:
5.1 billion people with inadequate iodine intake.
5.0 billion with inadequate vitamin E intake.
5.0 billion with inadequate calcium intake.
4.9 billion with inadequate iron intake.
These estimates relate specifically to food-derived intake and were calculated using globally harmonised dietary modelling. The researchers did not include supplementation or food fortification in their estimates.
But the larger message is difficult to ignore.
Despite unprecedented food production, global supply chains and advances in nutritional science, enormous portions of humanity are still not receiving enough of many of the basic micronutrients upon which biology depends.
We believe this demands new thinking.
Not simply more products.
Better nutritional architecture.
Better accessibility.
Greater scalability.
And solutions capable of reaching people across socioeconomic and geographic boundaries.
Changing Global Health for Good
Nutrition Lab Sciences was founded around a larger ambition than creating another supplement.
We believe foundational nutrition can become one of the most scalable tools available for supporting a healthier and more resilient humanity.
Essentbio® is our first expression of that vision.
A whole-plant nutritional foundation.
A proprietary science platform designed to improve matrix accessibility.
More than 200 naturally occurring phytocompounds associated with its botanical source.
And a model designed from the beginning with global accessibility in mind.
Our work will continue to evolve as we measure individual compounds, expand our analytical understanding of the Essentbio® matrix and advance from laboratory research toward increasingly sophisticated biological and human evidence.
But the direction is clear.
The world does not have a shortage of nutritional complexity.
Nature has already created it.
The challenge is learning how to preserve it, access it and deliver it at meaningful scale.
That is the future Nutrition Lab Sciences is building.
Nutrition is not only what reaches the plate. It is what reaches the biology.
References
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Passarelli S, Free CM, Shepon A, Beal T, Batis C, Golden CD. Global estimation of dietary micronutrient inadequacies: a modelling analysis. The Lancet Global Health. 2024;12(10):e1590–e1599. Published online August 29, 2024. DOI: 10.1016/S2214-109X(24)00276-6.
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Global Dietary Database.
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Nutrition Lab Sciences. The Science of Phytobiogenics™.
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Nutrition Lab Sciences. Improved Matrix Accessibility of a Proprietary Processed Moringa oleifera Leaf Powder: In-Vitro Evidence of Enhanced Soluble-Phase Release Under Simulated-Digestion Conditions. June 2026.
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Nutrition Lab Sciences. Essentbio® Daily Capsules.
Important information: This article is provided for general educational purposes and is not intended as medical advice.
